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  • ANKARA: Key Ergenekon suspect denies allegations

    Today's Zaman, Turkey
    Nov 15 2008



    Key Ergenekon suspect denies allegations


    The 13th hearing in the Ergenekon trial was held yesterday, with
    retired Capt. Muzaffer Tekin, one of the key suspects in the trial,
    giving his defense statement.

    Tekin argued that his arrest as a suspected member of Ergenekon, a
    criminal network accused of plotting to overthrow the government, was
    based on the discovery of empty hand grenade shells he was using to
    store stationery. The Ergenekon investigation was set off with the
    unearthing of explosives and ammunition in the summer of 2007 inside a
    house in Ä°stanbul's Ã`mraniye district.

    Tekin said he was implicated in the investigation only because two
    hollow hand grenades in his office were being used as pencil
    holders. "It is impossible to understand why these ornamental grenades
    in the indictment were treated as weapons of the 'organization'
    despite my having repeated many times in the police interrogation that
    the fuse elements of these two hand grenades had been taken out and
    they were souvenirs for when I retired," Tekin said, accusing the
    prosecutors of being selective with parts of a file on a 2007 attack
    on the Council of State, which, the prosecution asserts, was organized
    by Ergenekon. Tekin said the police had no evidence that the bombs
    were owned by any organization.

    Tekin said he first heard the name "Ergenekon terrorist organization"
    after the Council of State attack, in which a senior judge was fatally
    shot. "I am most distressed about being associated with an
    organization that I do not know a single thing about."

    He also claimed that that indictment was an exact match to the script
    of the popular TV series "Kurtlar Vadısı," (Valley of
    the Wolves), which features the story of shady characters working as
    undercover agents and their relationships with the criminal mafia.

    He stated that he had never taken part in an illegal network such as
    Ergenekon in his life. He accused the prosecution of turning the
    nickname used by his family into a "codename" he supposedly uses
    inside the organization. He also accused the prosecution of sending
    confidential documents about the investigation to pro-government
    newspapers.

    Tekin said the case was riddled with major violations of the law and
    claimed most of the evidence was manufactured while the suspects had
    been in prison. He accused the prosecution of being on a witch hunt
    against critics of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party)
    government.

    He also claimed that statements from suspect Osman
    Yıldırım are not
    true. Yıldırım testified that he planned the
    Council of State murder together with Alparslan Arslan, who was the
    hit man in the attack. He disparaged the indictment's claim that
    Yıldırım had rejected $1 million to shoot
    academic Necip HablemitoÄ?lu. "Yıldırım
    tu rned down $1 million in 2002 but accepted $500,000 to bomb the
    office of the Cumhuriyet newspaper. This is not consistent with the
    rules of everyday life," he said. The attackers of the Council of
    State also carried out a hand grenade attack at Cumhuriyet's office
    the same year, with no one being injured.

    The Ä°stanbul 13th High Criminal Court is hearing the case in a
    makeshift courtroom inside Silivri Prison near Ä°stanbul. Among
    the 86 suspects are retired Gen. Veli Küçük and
    lawyer Kemal Kerinçsiz, who is known for filing lawsuits
    against intellectuals over writings that question or criticize the
    state line on issues such as Armenian allegations of
    genocide. Forty-six of the suspects are in custody, and the rest have
    been released pending the outcome of the trial.

    The existence of Ergenekon has long been suspected, but the current
    investigation into the group began only in 2007.

    The Ergenekon indictment, made public in July, claims that the
    Ergenekon network is behind a series of political assassinations
    carried out over the past two decades for the ultimate purpose of
    triggering a military coup and taking over the government. The victims
    include secularist journalist UÄ?ur Mumcu, long believed to have
    been assassinated by Islamic extremists in 1993; the head of a
    business conglomerate, Ã-zdemir Sabancı, who was shot dead
    by militants of the extreme-left Revolutionary People's Liberation
    Party/Front (DHKP/C) in his high-security office in 1996; and
    secularist academic HablemitoÄ?lu, who was also believed to have
    been killed by Islamic extremists in 2002.

    Suspects face various charges, including "membership in an armed
    terrorist group," "attempting to destroy the government," "inciting
    people to rebel against the Republic of Turkey" and other similar
    crimes.

    15 November 2008, Saturday
    TODAY'S ZAMAN Ä°STANBUL
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